Fraser-Hickson building to be occupied by Rudolf Steiner School

Forced to close in March as a result of dwindling endowment funds, the Fraser-Hickson has been left adrift by the City of Montreal, which had kept the privately-funded library on life-support with short-term grants for several years.

While many generations of residents of NDG and Montreal's west end have depended — in the absence of adequate library service in the City of Montreal — on the Fraser-Hickson as their community library, the institution's administrators have seen no choice but to put their building up for sale, while seeking out a new venue.

Tom Thompson, a member of the Fraser-Hickson board of directors, confirmed a news report last weekend that the Steiner school, which is currently located on Coronation Avenue in NDG, is in the process of moving in and is interested in purchasing the Fraser-Hickson building. "The potential buyer is trying to look at options and trying to see how things might fit in there," he said. "That will also depend upon the speed with which the library moves its holdings … It's a period that they have to try and set these things up to make sure that this is possible."

While it appears a school will now be moving into a library building, CDN-NDG borough mayor Michael Applebaum made the suggestion on Monday that the Fraser-Hickson's next location, ironically, could be in a school. He said he recently sent a letter to EMSB vice-chairman Elizabeth Fokoefs "to see if there's any possiblity of (the Fraser-Hickson) maybe moving into one of the schools."

Thompson said Fraser-Hickson staff spent the last nine months going over all of the books and selecting out those that are critical to the collection and those that have never been used. He said they are currently being placed in storage at a private warehouse. He said library officials have stepped up their visits of potential new locations in the last two weeks. "We're looking at other places, hopefully close by, and within the community first," he said.

While Applebaum insists he did all he could to save the Fraser-Hickson from its present fate, Thompson, who is himself an elected official in Westmount, remains critical of how the borough and the Montreal dealt with the issue. "Where have they placed their priorities?" he said, dismissing the idea they couldn't afford it.

Diane Chambers, an NDG resident who has helped spearhead grassroots efforts to keep the Fraser-Hickson open on Kensington, says young families in the area who have children will be especially disappointed at the impending move. "There's the issue of computer services for NDG, which are very small at the present," she said. "Both of our existing libraries have very few stations. There are so many services that are going to be just lost."